Touch
by Poetic Pixie
Summary: Touch is a sense that is lost to him. It flutters on his fingertips, the real feeling lost in a sea of black leather gloves. VEvey


Little bit of _V for Vendetta_ goodness. Enjoy.

* * *

Love is a very physical thing. 

It twines around one's limbs and seeps into one's blood. It makes thoughts treacherous and causes the fingers to twitch, to want to feel the most basic of touches.

But touch is a sense that is lost to him. It flutters on his fingertips, the real feeling lost in a sea of black leather gloves. And he is fine with this, with living behind a mask for there is no one who he wishes to know his face.

But she has changed that. With her smile, her frailty and her will. He remembers the flicker of her eyes as he laid her down gently, oh so gently, on the bed. Her lashes float open and for a second he can see through them into her brown eyes before they close again. He resists the temptation to take off a glove, to stroke her soft, whole cheek with his burnt, shadow of a finger.

That is all he is, a shadow of a man. He wants to save the world from a grotesque government, he wants to do so while hiding every aspect of himself. He hides behind a noble idea, will become a martyr in his final act of vengeance for what has been done to him. This he knows and has had this fate planned for a long time.

He was fine with living in this world of hate, it drove him to do desperate things. He had no need for a conscience as there were just two kinds of people in the world. Those that work for the government and those that don't.

And then he feels her stand beside him as the Old Bailey is torn apart in a cavalcade of fire. He hears her gasp with wonder and sees her awe through the slotted eyes of his mask. He wants to move just a bit closer and to share this moment with someone, it fills him with a different kind of fire.

Fate is a curious thing, it always strikes at the most inopportune of times. As if there are too many people to be guided and not enough workers to take care of them all. It seems that fate, God, karma, or whatever it is that makes us wish for things we have never thought of before, these things have conspired against him. Made him wish for things that were never necessary until the prospect of having them, of wanting them, suddenly passed through his mind.

He never realized how much it would mean to simply hold someone.

But then, as he walks into the room he sees her again on the bed, on _his_ bed, he knows he will never touch her. Her lips will never touch his, her fingers will never become lost his in hair and his in turn will never get lost in hers. He will never hold her hand or her body or even her heart.

He leaves the sanction of the doorframe and stands next to the bed, his hand hovering over her. And then she wakes for an instant, her fingers clutching onto his sleeve for an instant. She sees him and the room and him again through sleep drugged eyes and falls back to sleep, her grip on him loosening and then falling away. Through the harshness of fabric he had felt the softness of her. It's quite different from the torture he's used to, and at this moment he decides that he likes the conventional method the best.

And she sleeps unaware.

But she does wake up, he hears her walk into the kitchen and hopes his vexation doesn't show when her eyes fall to his scarred hands. How can they not after all? The small ball of hope that everyone carries with them, the immensely tiny thing that he's sheltered somewhere inside, it suddenly disappears and he's no better for it.

While she waits for him to release her he catches her exploring his books. Her fingers trailing over titles that one cannot find anywhere else. She sometimes pulls one out at random and will sink into his couch, her eyes following words and stories that he's memorized long before. She doesn't notice when he sits down on the chair next to her, nor does she see his head turn just the slightest so he can catch a glimpse of her lips as they trace the words that lie before her.

But really, it shouldn't be so surprising that she'd want to leave as soon as the chance was within her grasp.

What is surprising is how surprising it was.

But he is more surprised at how he seemed to think that she would want to stay. He arrives home after her desperate flight away from him and his ghastly work and finds that breaking all things that can be replaced easily is actually quite therapeutic.

Of course he has to find her, make sure she's safe and whole and when he does find her he sees that she's safe and whole and sitting with another man and he's not sure how it changes anything but it does.

He knows he's being idiotic, he doesn't have any claim to her and he never will. But the way this stranger gently rocks her awake and leads her sleepy frame to bed, he's knows he cannot stand watching this and so he leaves. Let her be safe and whole, she deserves it after being caged with a monster.

But then he catches word of the arrest he rushes to save her, marvelling at how quickly he goes to save this woman and at how much he's willing to risk himself to do so. But as he takes her away he can feel her quiver with fear, the same fear he saw in her eyes when she saved him at the station, the same fear he saw as he held her captive and the same fear that she had as she ran away from him.

And this fear won't do at all.

And so he tries to rid her of it in the only way he knows how and no matter how much it pains him to watch her scream he has to help her. She cannot be imprisoned by terror as he was. But when she looks at him, glares at his naked face concealed in shadows, he suddenly feels fear again. Fear of a different kind and curiously he doesn't want to get rid of it. For if he were to get rid of this than he'd have to get rid of everything that this alien horror touches.

He would have to get rid of her.

He can't get rid of her, it is as simple as that yet it is not simple at all. It's complex in a way that he doesn't wish to analyze or even admit to, to admit one thing is to admit another and he cannot fall in love. There have been empires and great rulers that have fallen because of love, he cannot fail his mission because in the end his goals cannot cringe at his mangled face and scarred body. They can't reject his isolated form and tortured past

But she still breaks free and he watches her silently, sees her triumphant escape from the past and from him.

And he lets her go.

And for months he doesn't look for her. He doesn't glance at the door every now and then waiting for her to come back in for her promised visit. He doesn't dread the visit either, indeed he's resiliently neutral towards it.

She could walk in and rush into his numbed arms, she could come and smile and talk and leave after fifteen minutes. She could do everything he wants her too, she could do none of it.

He could ask her to dance.

And for once he does.

And to hold her and almost feel the brush of her head on his chin and the weight of her body in his arms. It's too tempting.

But temptation has always been man's downfall and as her fingers curl around the edges of his mask he stops her. It is the only thing that he will ever hide from her, should she choose to ask he would lay down his plans, his ideals, his life. All for her.

And in a way he does.

But oh, to go with a kiss on his lips. Even if it is just a mere shadow, a farce of a brush of skin and mouth. He can never feel her, never touch her, never make her his own. But still as she looks up at him somewhere he can hear a crescendo.

And to die in her arms, it's all so terribly clichéd but at this point it really doesn't matter. It really is better than dying alone, the only fate he ever saw for himself. But when they are together for what he knows is the last time he can feel something intangible, something that floats and flutters and settles in his numbed body and he knows that she is his and he can be sure that he hasn't failed her.

Love is a physical thing. Very much so.

But there is much more to it than that and for this he is grateful.


End file.
